This is a temporary position of up to 60 hours a month for a period of 2-months renewable up to 6-months based on CRS needs and TAIII availability

Job Summary

You will contribute to implementation of the agency strategy, specifically in the area of child protection and care with a focus on the Strategic Change Platform 5: Strengthening Families for Thriving Children at a country, regional or global level and provide technical advice and leadership in child protection and care at a regional or global level, including as a focal point for a geographic area as needed, in line with Catholic Relief Services (CRS) program quality principles and standards, donor guidelines, and industry best practices to Technical Advisors and Country Program (CP) teams to advance the delivery of high-quality programming to the poor and vulnerable. Your expertise, advice and influence will significantly contribute to determining how effective, adaptive and innovative CRS’ child protection and care programming is across a region or regions.[CM1]

Roles and Key Responsibilities

• Contribute to the design, advocate for, and ensure implementation of agency-wide strategies, standards, tools, and best practices in child protection and care that effectively engage partners, donors, and governments. Ensure a cross-sectoral approach that integrates gender, disability and protection mainstreaming and positions country programs for investments that can catalyze outcomes at scale and leverage existing expertise.
• Provide technical solutions globally, for regional and/or country programs teams for strategic planning and how to best apply ad adapt program design and implementation standards, best practices, partnership principles, tools, ad M&E in child protection and care, particularly for aspect(s) of our care reform work as it relates to Strategy Change Platform 5: Strengthening Children for Thriving Families.
• Contribute to HQ, regional, and country program staff efforts to pre-position CRS for strategic growth opportunities in child protection and care. Provide technical guidance in proposal development and project design with a focus on complex projects to ensure innovative programming solutions and technical excellence. Support CPs to appropriately staff project teams.
• Oversee and lead the delivery of capacity strengthening initiatives in aspect(s) of child protection and care globally for staff and partners through helping develop learning and training strategies and agendas/curriculums; organizing and/or facilitating trainings, workshops and conferences; and mentoring and coaching staff in innovative CRS approaches and tools. Provide mentoring and coaching to TAs, as well as CP and regional staff.
• Oversee and lead agency knowledge management and learning in child protection and care through helping implement conditions for collective learning that ensure the capturing, documenting, and sharing of key successes, promising practices, lessons learned, and evidence-based implementation research, internally and externally, including publications in peer reviewed journals.
• Represent CRS in targeted regional or global forums to develop opportunities and better ensure collaboration and shared learning in child protection and care to influence technical partner approaches, future funding opportunities, and policies. Network with relevant organizations to increase CRS’ profile in child protection and care influence in the regional or child protection and care community, and donor diversification.

Basic Qualifications

• Master’s degree in social work, Public Health preferred, or related field.
• Minimum of seven years of work experience in child protection and care with progressive responsibilities, ideally with an international NGO, with three years overseas in multiple regions as a technical advisor and/or program manager of a child protection and care and/or multi-sectoral project with a child protection and care component.
• Strong understanding and application of technical principles and concepts in child protection and care and/or social work and public health. Good knowledge of related disciplines to ensure proper cross-sectoral approach.
• Track record of contributing to successful business development activities capturing public and/or private donor funding in child protection and care/vulnerable children programming.
• Experience in the development and production of curricula, tools, and other products to support child protection and care/vulnerable children programming interventions and programming. Demonstrated experience to transfer knowledge to diverse audiences through training, mentoring, and other formal and informal methods.
• Experience with program monitoring and evaluation including development of indicators, data collection tools and methodologies, data analysis, and data presentation.
• Experience and skills to represent the organization at meetings with donors, government, international NGOs, local partners – faith-based and civil society. Understanding of partnership principles.
• Proficient in MS Office packages (Excel, Word, PowerPoint), Web Conferencing Applications and strong understanding of information and budget management systems and knowledge-sharing networks.

Preferred Qualifications

• PhD a plus.
• Technical and/or academic publications a plus.

Knowledge, Skills and Abilities 

• Excellent relationship management skills with ability to influence and get buy-in from people not under direct supervision and to work with individuals in diverse geographical and cultural settings.
• Very strong strategic, analytical, problem-solving and systems thinking skills with capacity to see the big picture and ability to make sound judgment
• Very strong written and oral communication skills
• Very strong presentation, facilitation, training, mentoring, and coaching skills
• Proactive, resourceful and results-oriented

Travel – This position is primarily remote, but may require some face to face meetings in Baltimore.

Catholic Relief Services is the official international humanitarian agency of the Catholic community in the United States. Catholic Relief Services works to save, protect, and transform lives in need in more than 100 countries, without regard to race, religion or nationality.  Catholic Relief Services’ relief and development work is accomplished through programs of emergency response, HIV, health, agriculture, education, microfinance, and peacebuilding.  We welcome as a part of our staff people of all faiths and secular traditions who share our values and our commitment to serving those in need. CRS’ processes and policies reflect our commitment to safeguarding children and vulnerable adults from abuse and exploitation.

CRS welcomes candidates from the countries and regions in which we work. In the event the successful candidate is an expatriate or global telecommuter, the anticipated duration of the assignment is informed by a term limit, based on the type and level of the job and the needs of the agency.

CRS is committed to safeguarding program participants, community members, staff and volunteers from all forms of exploitation and abuse.  The successful candidate is expected to sign and adhere to CRS´ Code of Conduct.

CRS talent acquisition procedures reflect our commitment to safeguarding the rights and dignity of all people – especially children and vulnerable adults – to live free from abuse and harm.

Disclaimer:  This job description is not an exhaustive list of the skill, effort, duties, and responsibilities associated with the position. 

CRS is an Equal Opportunity Employer.

General Requirements

CRS offers are contingent on the selected candidate’s ability to legally work where the position is to be performed. Every government has a unique set of work permit eligibility requirements.  All positions requiring residence or frequent travel outside a home country must undergo and clear a pre-employment medical clearance; some work permit processes require clearing a separate government administered medical examination.

CRS prioritizes candidates who are citizens/ permanent residents of the countries where we have CRS offices.